A Japanese origin or at least a strong infusion of Japanese blood, has been attributed to the tribes of the north-west coasts. There is nothing improbable in this; indeed, there is every reason to believe that on various occasions small parties of Japanese have reached the American continent, have married the women of the country, and necessarily left the impress of their ideas and physical peculiarities upon their descendants. Probably these visits were all, without exception, accidental; but that they have occurred in great numbers is certain. There have been a great many instances of Japanese junks drifting upon the American coast, many of them after having floated helplessly about for many months. Mr Brooks gives forty-one particular instances of such wrecks, beginning in 1782, twenty-eight of which date since 1850.[I-112] Only twelve of the whole number were deserted. In a majority of cases the survivors remained permanently at the place where the waves had brought them. There is no record in existence of a Japanese woman having been saved from a wreck. A great many Japanese words are to be found in the Chinook jargon, but in all cases abbreviated, as if coming from a foreign source, while the construction of the two languages is dissimilar.[I-113] The reasons for the presence of Japanese and the absence of Chinese junks are simple. There is a current of cold water setting from the Arctic ocean south along the east coast of Asia, which drives all the Chinese wrecks south. The Kuro Siwo, or 'black stream,' commonly known as the Japan current, runs northwards past the eastern coast of the Japan islands, then curves round to the east and south, sweeping the whole west coast of North America, a branch, or eddy, moving towards the Sandwich Islands. A drifting wreck would be carried towards the American coast at an average rate of ten miles a day by this current. To explain the frequent occurrence of these wrecks Mr Brooks refers to an old Japanese law. About the year 1630, the Japanese government adopted its deliberate policy of exclusion of foreigners and seclusion of its own people. To keep the latter from visiting foreign countries, and to confine their voyages to smooth water and the coasting trade, a law was passed ordering all junks to be built with open sterns and large square rudders unfit to stand any heavy sea. The January monsoons from the north-east are apt to blow any unlucky coaster which happens to be out straight into the Kuro Siwo, the huge rudders are soon washed away, and the vessels, falling into the trough of the sea, roll their masts overboard. Every January there are numbers of these disasters of which no record is kept. About one third of these vessels, it seems, drift to the Sandwich Islands, the remainder to North America, where they scatter along the coast from Alaska to California. How many years this has been going on can only be left to conjecture. The information given